APA gets grant from Mellon Foundation to develop a code of publishing ethics, i.e., provide a post-hoc rationalization for the mistreatment of Prof. Tuvel

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY: E-mail me if your comment still has not appeared at the APA site by this evening, and I will collect and post the comments here. Remember the APA site requires a name and e-mail address. (5/15/18 update at 3:20 pm CST: comments have started to appear.)

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MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 9: The APA blog now features a post about this project, which makes clear that this will be another unethical code, intent on violating the academic freedom of scholars and rationalizing the unethical treatment of Prof. Tuvel. Readers should comment at the APA blog. One reader, who wrote me about this, indicated that if this goes forward, they will stop paying APA dues.

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The APA press release is here. The last "ethics code" the APA produced was a joke, which might make one wonder what will result here, especially when the Executive Director of the APA, who is not a philosopher, remarks that, "Recent publishing controversies, as well as a more general awareness of diversity issues in the field, have brought increased attention to publication ethics in philosophy." The release goes on to state that,

Some of the issues that the initiative will address include evolving forms of scholarly misconduct, diversity in citation and engagement practice, varieties of plagiarism, and implicit bias in research, peer review, and editorial practices, as well as correcting the scholarly record when missteps occur. In order to address widespread disagreement about these issues, the grant will bring editors, scholars, and publishers together to develop a set of explicit and clear guidelines.

There have been some major breaches of publication ethics of late (recall the Bruyahaha or the Jenkins-Soble fiascos), but it's very clear that what this is really about (given the repeated references to diversity, and, remarkably, "diversity in citation and engagement practice") is an attempt by the APA to put its imprimatur on the unethical and unprofessional behavior of the Associate Editors of Hypatia during the Tuvel affair.

"How can you be so confident, Brian, that that's the point of this exercise?" a skeptic might ask. Fair question. But please note that, putting aside Ms. Ferrer, three of the five academic members of this committee--Rebecca Kennison, Yannik Thiem, and Adriel Trott--were signatories to the open letter defaming Prof. Tuvel and calling on Hypatia to retract her article. That's right, the majority of this committee supported unethical and unprofessional conduct by Hypatia. And now they will draft a code of publication ethics.

Now in the world of actual professionals, one might have thought having signed on to an unethical attack on another scholar and a call for a journal to behave unprofessionally would disqualify one from participating in crafting a code of publication ethics. But not at the APA: apparently at the APA, it's still an open question, as it is nowhere else in the world (apart from the incoming Board of Hypatia!), whether Hypatia should have withdrawn a peer-reviewed article because it offended some readers.

Enough is really enough. Anyone who pays dues to the APA should stop until some house cleaning is done. And those philosophers with actual ethical standards and professional judgment who are involved with the APA: why are you permitting this to happen?

ADENDUM: Strictly speaking, the Mellon Grant is to the PI at Fairfield University, but the participation and endorsement of the APA's Executive Director and the featuring of this project on the APA website makes clear where this is heading.